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Building professional confidence Arguably, it has never been harder to be an SBL than right now. VAL ANDREW offers some alternative ways of thinking to rekindle confidence in yourself and your role
M
y last piece for EdExec focused on the reasons why so many school business professionals were leaving the profession, based on feedback from practitioners. For this article I thought we could switch this concept round, and look at why we decide to work in schools in the first place, and how acknowledging this can help us to build our own professional confidence so that we can get back to enjoying the role again at a time when the challenges around us are huge. WHY DO WE CHOOSE TO WORK IN EDUCATION? I am a fan of Simon Sinek and his Start with Why idea. Whilst the original concept of Sinek’s book was marketing, and excellence in leadership, aimed at the business world, I think this concept can be enlightening when we apply it and seek to understand why we choose to work in the education sector. There’s no doubt that one of the key reasons SBMs are leaving the profession at the moment is pay-related; I’m not denying this is a massive issue right now across all public
40 May 2023
sector organisations. However, public sector pay has never been as competitive as the salaries we could attract working in the commercial world – so one could deduce from this that we absolutely don’t choose to work in schools for the money! So – why do we choose to work in schools? When you ask the question, the responses are varied: Transferrable skills – many who join our ranks as school business professionals start their careers in the world of commerce. At some point, there is a realisation that a specific skill set is readily transferrable into the role of the SBM and this, coupled with a desire to escape the ‘rat race’, leads many choose to switch their focus to public sector and look for roles within education. The hours – this is probably a reason that is quickly being eroded as workloads across the sector are fast approaching the same unmanageable levels often seen in the private sector. That said, post-COVID, and in the light of the current recruitment and retention crisis (yes, it is a crisis now!) schools are having to be more creative with flexible working arrangements and part time contracts.